10/26/2016 – Stranded Subjects

SAR Staff, SVU, and WCSAR responded to the entrance road to Trego from SR447 to search for two missing subjects in a VW van. A friend of the subjects had called to report them overdue, and the male subject had texted early in the morning that they had mechanical issues and he wouldn’t make it to work. Cell phone pings were vague at best, so one team was sent to an old mine area off of the road to Trego, with a second destination near the Black Rock Point area. The subjects were reported to be in the area to look for opals, so both of these areas were possible locations. Another team was sent to act as radio relay at the twelve mile entrance to the Black Rock, and the last team was headed to the Black Rock Point area from the twelve mile entrance. Not long after teams were deployed, and the first mine area on the Trego road had been checked, the radio relay team saw the subjects traveling across the Playa, appearing to come off of the Soldier Meadows Road. Teams were able to contact the subjects and learned that they had encountered mechanical issues the day before and had spent the night somewhere off of the Soldier Meadows Road. They were able to fix the problem and got themselves moving again.